Report abuse, hiding content, and no appeal process

Matt Nevill said:

• put the content in a moderation queue only a moderator can see and approve/deny
  • Is this also set from Definitely Abusive Threshold =1?
• not allow the appeal process but let a user know their content is currently being moderated 
  • I see the appeal time window but no disable option and I don't want the author to get an email, notification, or anything else that implies they can appeal.

This part is going to require some automation. The abuse workflow does not support (via configuration) making abusive content immediately actionable by moderators -- an appeal is required.

You could automate the creation of the appeal (via an Automation or Plugin) and adjusting the notification messages related to content entering the abuse workflow (via Administration > Notifications) to achieve this.

Matt Nevill said:

If content is denied by a moderator is it deleted just from the view of other members?

When identified as definitely abusive, the content is generally hidden from the Community (and only viewable in the moderation queue). When denied, the content is flagged for expungement. When the expungement date arrives, it is deleted.

The general workflow is Reported (awaiting definitely abusive status, no change to the UI, shown in 'Possibly Abusive' tab of the Moderation Queue) -> Definitely Abusive (hidden from the UI but moderators are not notified yet, content will show in 'Awaiting Appeal' list in the Moderation Queue) -> Appealed (moderators notified, will show in 'Pending Review' tab of Moderation) -> Denied (Flagged for expungement) -> Expunged (Deleted).

When an abuse report is appealed (or appeal time expires) are the moderators supposed to get an email or just an in-app notification?

They should be receiving both a lightning notification (on-site) as well as an email notification that looks like this (with your branding and not ours, most likely):

For future searchers:  How does moderation and abuse work? Specifically this line: If the author appeals the abusive designation, the content with the appeal will show on the Awaiting Review tab of Administration > Moderation > Moderation Queue and moderators that can review the content will be notified that there is content to review.

They should be receiving both a lightning notification (on-site) as well as an email notification that looks like this (with your branding and not ours, most likely):

For future searchers:  How does moderation and abuse work? Specifically this line: If the author appeals the abusive designation, the content with the appeal will show on the Awaiting Review tab of Administration > Moderation > Moderation Queue and moderators that can review the content will be notified that there is content to review.